Change In The House Of Flies
by The Voice in the Wilderness
Summary: InuYasha pays dearly for one selfless and stupid act. Note: "Change In The House of Flies" belongs to the Deftones, not I. I am merely a fan.


_All "InuYasha" characters belong to Rumiko Takahashi and associated copyright holders. No money is being made from this fan fiction. No infringement is intended._

I had been working on this one painting for the last month, more or less. I'm bad with time these days. Too bad the damn thing has refused to cooperate with exactly how I think it should look. I scratch the side of my grimy face in irritation and swipe a stray hair out of my eyes. The recollection of the face I'd been seeing every night for the last month seems just too hazy to get down in the realistic way I'd been trying for. I need to get that spectral look down just right! My patrons seem to sense my growing dread; the answering machine is full of cajoling and ego-strokes but I could give a flying fuck. My world is reduced to the pinpoint that is me, my tools and my art. Flaying my soul day after day for the sake of this flagellation by paintbrush is giving me that sleek, fast look only junkies and the damned seem to master. Too bad I don't notice or care and narrow my violet eyes at the demon staring back at me.

"Shit."

Throwing down my brush in aggravation and wiping the sticky acrylic off my fingers with a damp rag, I glare at my problem child of a painting.

What to do?

I wanted this thing done already – get it done, over with and out of my exhausted mind! Hoping to exorcize the strange dreams I'd been having lately was what had started this whole annoying situation. I hoped to wield my art in hopes of escape from this strange possession.

Compulsion is a cruel master and karma is a bitch. Scrubbing my face, I know I need to shit, shower and shave as the fella says, but dammit, I can't think of anything else and even in my sleep, I'm not free of this creature. I know now that I am doomed.

I know I am asleep. That's how the whole thing starts, every single time. I'm in the dark, in the woods, bare trees tall and solid, dead leaves like white noise under my booted feet. It's cold and it's still and I'm going somewhere, but I don't know where.

The woods are thick and too still. No snuffling night creatures are heard. Not even the wind makes a sound as it passes. The only sound is my feet crunching on dead leaves. There is familiar weight on my back and I know without even looking it is my quiver and bow, the bowstring like a wire across my chest; yet somehow I feel hunted rather than the hunter. I can't help but desire the close personal slaughter that only a sword can give, but somehow I always have the distant bombsight that is an archer's kit. My soul's yearnings mean nothing here. The frigid dead air hurts my lungs to breathe and my coughing is the loudest noise in the world. Suddenly, I am not alone –

The Inugami is with me, at the corner of my eye but there is never anything to be seen when I turn my head to look. It won't let me see and I look away. Its presence is like oily smoke and it clings to my thickly braided black hair, my icy hands, my blue lips. Its hatred of servitude is a slow hiss, a tire leaking air and I know shortly I will reach its remains and then everything will go wrong, so terribly wrong. I know this because it has happened every time I have closed my eyes. It has happened every night since I was so terribly careless in what feels like an eternity ago.

The whispering presence that shadows my every move, always just out of sight, always on the verge of striking me dead in innumerable tortuous ways, begins to seethe as my dream self come to the largest tree I've ever seen. There is a scar on the bark where I know something dark has lain for ages. I can't stop the shiver down my spine as the Inugami writhes angrily around me, shimmering in the air, an irate mirage.

The stark bleached skeletal remains are a familiar shattered and sprawled mess at the mossy roots, accusing me of every evil thing I've ever done. A rotten piece of raw rope is still holding the twisted hollow creature to the ground, fixed in the hard dirt and in my heart by a rusted iron spike as thick as my arm. I can hear the pitiful clawing at the dead earth and I can feel the slow twisting of my throat as it is crushed, tighter and tighter by the garrote of my haphazardly tied lead. I can't keep it in anymore and start to tremble in my blood-colored coat. My cynical mind wants to laugh because it's so fitting; my dream self wears crimson clothes, because I am a murderer. Yet I know, once I start laughing, my mind will be gone and I know there will be no easy lunacy to escape to for the likes of me. Now I must pay a heavy penance for my stupidity. The Inugami is making sure of it.

I see the creature for a split second and try to take a mental picture to fix its form in my haunted and exhausted mind. I mentally trace silver hair whipping the air around like angry snakes and crimson eyes, dilated in endless hatred are once again scratched into the ink of my mind.

My guilty eyes want to ignore the necklace of blue-black bruises around its raw torn throat but I can't look away.

The long fingers are tipped in razor-thin claws that I know are sharper than steel and honed nightly on its dreams of ripping me to slick red shreds.

Its ears are always thrust forward at attention, their silver tips quivering with open rage. For only a moment I see its haunted form and I know the Inugami wants my soul.

I know it will blight me with madness until the demon can seep into my subjugated body and wear me like a suit. What atrocities will I commit under its dark hands? Always I fall to numb knees before the charnel pile and the hungry spirit retreats into the bleached bones, raging in shrieking howls against its confinement and subjugation. Then I wake up frozen to the bone, screaming.

Always drenched in cold sweat, drops licking down my bare body; my throat will be raw the rest of my day.

The few women who see me on my less and less frequent ventures out of the studio think the rasping of my thick voice is incredibly sexy. Escape from the beast is impossible even in the bed of some hot bitch I pick up after drinking myself into a dull stupor. Even if I can manage to get hard and fuck, I see the Inugami's evil on the face of my lover; the hot tongue in my mouth tries to choke me, the beautiful face flickers and red lush lips split into a hyena's fanged grin and I hear its cackling laughter and wilt under its dead yellow stare. After nearly killing the last wench in abject terror I'd mistakenly brought to bed, I don't try to run anymore…

There was a dog and I thought I was dong it a favor.

There was stake with a rope attached to it and I was only going to be gone an hour, I needed linseed, some brushes and some food.

A man can't live on ramen noodles alone, he must also have whisky.

The tree in my scrubby yard was nice and shady but I put out some water out because it was Indian summer.

I thought I was doing that damn stray a favor.

I thought I was doing the right thing.

When I finally got back from my store-run, I thought I was going to puke my guts up in guilt and shame. How could I know the damn animal had just enough rope and not enough brains to strangle itself?

The purple swollen tongue lolling stupidly in its death-grimace was bad but the season's last fat flies helping themselves to its unseeing eyes were worse.

The irony was the damn scotch busted open and ruined the small bag of dog food I'd picked up and the sidewalk was covered in liquor and linseed oil until rained 3 days later.

I dug a hole at the foot of the tree and cutting the rope from the tree's trunk, dumped the stiffing carcass into the black and wormy earth. I leaned against the wood trying not to blow chunks, adding insult to injury and cut the back to my arm on the raw, abraded wood and couldn't stop the bilious heaving I'd tried so fucking had to deny.

If I could, I'd look out this studio window and probably notice what good fertilizer will do in a short time – the grass around that tree never looked thicker but all I can think is that it's the slick uncut hair of a grave. Unconsciously scooting further from the window and closer to my hellish canvas, I goad my muse into action again and pick up a filthy brush.

It's all I can think of now. I've started signing my work, "Dog-Spirit" and my patrons think they are getting in on a hip artist's newest quirk.

They don't know I can't eat anymore. My throat tightens painfully every time I try to force something, anything down. Water doesn't quench my thirst. Leftover Percocet and booze aren't strong enough to keep the beast at bay, night after night after night. I feel more than half insane unless I distract myself with my now epic task and the Inugami refuses to allow me any refuge from my misery; every night it haunts my dreams and every day its image thwarts my work.

My eyes have begun to yellow, lit by a dead cold fire; I try to tell myself it's from too much booze, too many smokes. And my hair, once blue-black has begun to turn silver, a matted mane hanging down my wretched back. It itches and I reek of musk like an animal's den.

I crave a long hot shower but I can't stop working, I need to get this damn THING done and out of my head! I need to exorcize this beast in my mind or die trying. But my eyes are crossed with the undeniable need for sleep and I know in my heart that tonight will be the last night I have.

Grabbing my brush I return to my canvas, my battle.

I know I am asleep. That's how this always starts. Leaves crunching dully under my bare feet, I feel something about the scenery has changed. It's as subtle as a shift in ambient light on an unfinished canvas. My boots are gone and my feet are cold and raw. Unseen sticks in the leaf mould stab my exposed soles but I am forced to keep walking.

The trees still stand like sentinels who can't be bothered to notice anything but the passage of time; they have no pity. The tightness of a bowstring across my chest has been replaced by a rusted sword at my hip. A moment flies by and is gone and the Inugami is with me again. Its hatred is eternal like death and taxes and I'm so tired, so very tired of all this. It rages for my bloody slaughter in vehement silence, but I can feel it just the same as if it were howling and gnashing its slavering jaws in my face.

I just want to rest. Now…! Soon…! Please just let me atone and then sleep. I'll even sleep forever if that what it takes.

The Tree, the Stake, the Rope are all here once again; they haven't changed. They're the holy trinity of my personal hell and the axis around which my tormenting demon revolves. I know now that Hell is repetition. I know this will never end as long as I am alive.

Walking to the skeletal prison I've created I suddenly think of a way out of all this. Unsheathing my sword, its rusted and tarnished edges slyly hiding its terrible strength, its gentle curve an ironic knife twisted into my soul.

I lift the blade over my silver head and sharply plunge straight through the moldering skull with a relieved shout.

I know I will enjoy the oblivion that is flowing through my body with a triumphant howl. I know this because the Inugami knows this. Karma is a bitch and now so am I.

There was a dog and I thought I was doing it a favor. But I was an idiot and everyday somewhere, a really terrible accident can change some fool's life or worse, it can plunge you into Hell, haunted by vengeful ghosts. Since that day I was searching for forgiveness and found only rage, guilt and torment. I was trying for something that had already found me.


End file.
